YOU CHOSE WRONG

(from Choose Your Own Adventure #3: Space and Beyond, 1980) 

My flagship site, Armagideon Time, began back in 2006 as a music blog before evolving into a daily transcript of passing preoccupations and retrological detritus.  

There were a handful of reasons I eventually dropped the mp3 angle, the biggest of which being the murky legalities and unpredictable hassles associated with it.  Every trip to the “recent comments” log or site’s email yielded either a massive headache or (more rarely) a moment of vindication — and sometimes both in the very same day.

There’s nothing like seeing a “thank you” note from an artist sharing inbox space with a sternly worded takedown notice from the artist’s label sent three minutes later, let me tell you.

Even though those days are behind me, I still get a little…anxious…when some interested party contacts me about something posted on one of my sites.  Though the projects are strictly non-profit (apart from this child of exceptional fortune) and I try to follow the hazy doctrine of “Fair Use,” residual dread about C&D notices and legal threats is tough to shake.

So you can imagine how pleasantly stunned I was when the folks who publish the Choose Your Own Adventure series reached out to praise You Chose Wrong and submit a staff-selected sampler of favorite failures — such as today’s platonically perfect gem featured above.

Thank you, CYOA folks, for dispelling my adult paranoia as effectively as you engendered its childhood counterpart.